Pages

2.17.2017

i
came home after work this evening, anxious as i had been before i left. i pride
myself in very few things, but one of those things is my ability to seem
relatively normal (normal relative to myself, which is abnormal, but not too abnormal).
today i had been cleaning my room vigorously, after showering and scrubbing
myself vigorously, dancing vigorously around and generally trying to force
myself into a better mood.

feeling anxious, are we? my brain had asked me, as i sat on
the edge of my bed, chain smoking cigarettes and rereading my many journals. cleaning
usually helps, let's try that.

it didn't work. time came to head to work, i chugged 20 oz.
of red bull and charged in, wired to the gills and seeming my usual self.
giggling, bubbly, full of energy and positive vibes. that's the version of me
people know and love. matched a coworker, wit for wit, thrusting and parrying
with words like swords. made her laugh. even made some of our patrons smile as
i joked with them. left with a grin and a wave, double thumbs up, telling one
of my coworkers, see you 'round! then slipping out the door.
two jobs, well done, if i do say so myself.

smoked another two cigarettes. got on the train and came home. sang morning
theft by jeff buckley as i walked home. showered. which is to say, i
stood under the water in a dark bathroom, listening to music play on my
cellphone and trying to warm myself up from the outside in. came back to my
room where i asked my teddy bears, mice, room in entirety, what the
hell is wrong with me? what am i feeling? my eyes partially misty,
choking back their own tears, swallowing the frozen lump of sadness congealing
in my throat.

the question was rhetorical; the answer was immediate. dramatically
disingenuous.

can't be, i thought. does that mean what i think it does? or is
my mind just fucking with me some more?

googled the definition of disingenuous. (i already know
dramatic. re: the scenes of my life, a well scripted live divine comedy.) i saw
the following.

dis·in·gen·u·ous

adjective

not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows
less about something than one really does.

(then this, the word
used in a sentence written almost directly to me)

"that
innocent, teary-eyed look is just part of a disingenuous act"

sarcastically, it was very funny.

sadly,
it was painfully accurate.

i
know what's bothering me, deep down. i know why i've felt uncomfortable in my
skin all day. i know what caused the anxiety, the pacing, the chain smoking and
agitated finger tapping. i didn't want to admit it. i don't want to admit it. i
don't want to face this problem. i want it to take care of itself. it won't and
i have to. i know that and i hate it. so i'm pretending i don't know what's
going on, which only serves to make me more irritable and anxious because,
well, why not just deal with the damn problem? because i am a coward when it
comes to my own emotions. and because i won't face them today, tomorrow, or
even sunday at this rate. i'm making myself almost quite literally sick. i ask
people vaguely what would make me feel better, as if i didn't know myself. i
frown and sigh, head tossed back, exhaling warm, gray clouds into the cold,
black air.

the
not knowing why i'm upset part? that's false. forget being economical with the
truth; this is plain old lying.

2.10.2017

i'm about to turn twenty-four in eleven days and my twenty-third year has been the single craziest year of my existence. well, every year gets madder, more unpredictable, somewhat worse from an objective viewpoint. sometimes i'm not even sure it's real. i keep expecting i'll wake up one morning and wooooo it'll all be a really bad dream-- like i've had one too many drinks, popped a stray pill, went on a crazy trip, i don't know-- but it isn't. time has proven that. over and over again. it's all been too real. i want to say it's life, but it's not. it's me. i've always been losing it. now it just affects my life in more obvious ways.

this is what i've been doing.

i go to work in the evenings, some nights. i go to therapy in the mornings, some days. i spend my afternoons reading, journaling, writing music, cuddling with my teddy bears, and recently, watching breaking bad. (i've never seen it before. the violence doesn't do it for me but the philosophical questions it generates excite my brain to no end.) sometimes i stay awake for days, staring out blankly and wondering if i'll ever go through with the suicidal thoughts that flash through my skull. sometimes i sleep all day and can barely get out of bed long enough to brush my teeth. some weeks i eat too much, some weeks i don't eat much at all.

every once in a while, i put my phone on airplane mode so i don't have to talk to anyone. i remember wanting people to talk to for a long time but lately, i just want to be left alone. like, who cares? i have a few people i talk to regularly but mostly, i'm past it.

i have a new boyfriend (or as he would say, manfriend); i call him wolfy because he is. he bites, nibbles, growls. endlessly kinetic and marvelously wise. i don't spend a lot of time with him because he's a busy, busy man, but when i do it's beyond wonderful. more importantly, he's wonderful. he's also 26 years older than me. i wonder how long this will last... hopefully a long time, however foolish that may sound to people. i have a separate boy who's in love with me. (no shortage of those, oddly enough, no matter how hideous i think i am, or how horrible i tell them i am. there's a couple. it's weird.) he's also nice. a cross between a best friend, former lover, and gap filler for the free time in my days. we mostly just get groceries together, play basketball, shoot the shit. there are nights when i miss my wolf and wonder if i should just date this other guy out of convenience (not unlike my first boyfriend). but i wouldn't. it's too easy.

sometimes i look at old posts here and i think to myself, oh wow, i should've probably gotten help for x y or z back then, but haha, i didn't and look at how far i've fallen! it's pretty horrendous. i've slowly watched my mental health grow increasingly worse. i've stood at the edge of the abyss and gazed into my own soul. (dramatic, ain't it.) i still read poetry. i fell in love with a musical, notre dame de paris. i broke a few hearts, even while trying to be gentle with them. hey, you know, i became more honest with people because of this blog. i found out being one hundred percent honest doesn't work as well in real life as it does here. a lot of people like being lied to.

life, hm? the more it seems to change, the more it stays the same. funny. not so funny. has anything really changed here, though? same script, just a different cast.

i feel like i've been spinning in circles, doing donuts and leaving skid marks on the asphalt of a parking lot for the past few years. but even if i was doing great, i don't know if i'd feel like i was making progress. i don't know what i want.